I just watched the animated feature "The Dark Knight Returns: Part 2", and granted, while there were several things that I had issues with regarding that film, there were a few things in there where I wish we could have seen something like that portrayed in "The Dark Knight Rises".

Namely, the part where Batman rides off to go and gather his "army" in order to secure Gotham and stop its crazed citizens from overrunning it with riots.

I wish we could have gotten a scene like that with Bale's Batman and GPD in "TDKR", that would have definitely provided the much needed "ice-breaker" (no pun intended) regarding the animosity the cops are likely to have towards Batman given the events of "TDK"; I mean we all saw on how many cops were willing to turn over Batman to the Joker, let alone on how most, if not all (but Gordon and Blake) believed that Batman was responsible for killing Dent.

And of course, it would have been nice to see Bale's batman choreographed in a way that mirrored on how they had this animated Batman fighting in terms of people actually shooting at him and Batman actually dodging the gunfire or throwing batarangs at them to fend them off.

And hell, I would have loved seeing a much more BRUTAL manhunt for Batman where shots are actually being fired at him and batman actually taking injury from it as well.

But overall, I'm glad that "The Dark Knight Rises" actually ended on a note where Gotham and Bruce had a chance to start a new life afresh in a peaceful manner; whereas every version of Gotham that I've seen in any medium seems to be proverbially cursed to be "Hell on Earth", where, no matter how many years Batman puts into the job, nothing seems to be changing for the better overall.

Agreed. There really needed to be scene before the war other than Batman showing up to take out the tank that clears the air between Batman and the cops. We have to assume Foley saw Bane's speech on TV where the truth comes out but it's not really dealt with on screen. Batman and Foley really needed to have a scene together to make Foley's arc complete. It's Gordon that inspires him out of apathy not Bats. Not sure if Bale (in the Bat voice) rallying the cops would translate to film very well, though.